Lines of Symmetry
by CitronPresse
Summary: An attempt at communication and understanding, in a dark, damp yard, outside a party. (Set post episode 1.6, in the context of episode 1.5.). Characters: Lindsay Weir, Daniel Desario. Warning: casual drug use.


Days after the whole band practice disaster went down, still caught a little in its ripples, she finds herself sitting close to Daniel, in the dark, slightly dewy front yard of some girl from school's parents' house.

There's a party going on inside the house. She's not really in the mood, would almost prefer to be at home, doing logarithms. (She is, in fact, absently, doing logorithms in her head.) It was really only on a recently discovered autopilot that she lied to her parents about her intentions for the evening and showed up here at all.

She thought she was alone. There was no indication he was there, a few yards away from her, until the smell of weed wafted towards her nose.

She looks up. "Daniel?"

He keeps his eyes fixed on the joint held in his fingers. "Hey, Lindsay," he says, so soft it's almost inaudible. And, honestly, she wants to be mad at him. No, she _is _mad at him: for the algebra test; for making such a dramatically big deal in Nick's basement, when she just wanted to make the band a little better; for when he cynically, condescendingly (not like he'd even know the word) crushed her naïve support of Nick's drumming ambitions. Which is the last time she really spoke to him – or rather, he spoke to her. So, yeah, she's mad. He just sounds, looks, so dejected, she can't help asking,

"Are you okay?"

He inhales, lets the breath out, looks up at her. "Yeah. I'm fine." He smiles, so briefly it's lost before the corners of his mouth really even turn up. "How you been?"

She shrugs, laughs awkwardly. "You like see me practically every day."

"I know. I just . . . " He fiddles with the joint. "I miss, you know . . . talking to you."

There's this little rush inside her that is absolutely charmed. Except, then, she gets it! He wants something; he's manipulating her again; and the little rush cycles from charm back to pure indignation. "Talking to me as in, oh, I don't know, telling me bullshit about how hard it is for you to fail in school so I'll cheat for you?"

"Nah, Linds, I -"

She's on a roll now. "Or, wait, no, maybe you'd like to humiliate me again just because I have a little more faith than –"

"I'm sorry," he breaks in, emphatic, loud enough, but at the same time still so guarded that she instantly shuts up, stares at him, waits. "Okay?" Slowly, he moves the joint to his lips, takes a long inhale, squints as the smoke hits his lungs, exhales, and looks down at his hand again. "It wasn't all bullshit," he mutters. "I mean it _was_ . . . but it, like, wasn't." He sighs, musters himself to deliver something like clarity. "It wasn't all bullshit when I was telling it to you."

The little charmed rush regroups itself, but she's not quite ready to give in. "Kim said –" she protests.

"Like she knows everything about me!" he snaps fiercely, eyes suddenly locked with hers.

Lindsay holds her breath, a little scared, a little spellbound.

"I miss talking to you," he repeats, an expression a little like a wince on his face, as he struggles to communicate. "You make stuff seem . . . like there's, like . . . hope or something." He lets out a short laugh. "Nobody else ever does."

She knows she's supposed to say something now, but she literally doesn't know what, or really even how.

He takes it the wrong way. "Sorry for wasting your time," he says, slowly standing up, and starts to go.

"No," she says indistinctly, clears her throat to make her voice work properly. "Daniel, hey, I . . ."

"Yeah?" He half-turns back.

"I miss talking to you too," she says, suddenly meaning it with all her heart.

"Yeah?" he says again, this time with a grin emerging on his face. He moves towards her, sits down next to her. "You want to smoke?" he asks, offering the almost finished joint.

She shakes her head.

"You want to do something?"

She shakes her head again. "Just . . . " She waves a hand, trying to encompass the yard, him, her, the cooling night air, everything tangible and intangible. "This is fine."

He pauses a moment, sucks in the last of the weed, blows out the smoke, and throws the butt into the damp grass, then reaches in his pocket, pulls out a cigarette, lights it, inhales and exhales again, as Lindsay follows every second, every movement of the ritual.

Finally, he smiles at her, lines crinkling around his eyes like he means it. "I guess it is," he says.


End file.
